Lisa Zahn

Since I did a list yesterday, I thought I'd do another one today. I'm more into my books than my blog right now so time is limited. Here's what I have checked out right now from our fabulous St. Cloud library: Sabbath: Restoring the Sacred Rhythm of Rest by Wayne Muller jamie at home: Cook Your Way to the Good Life by Jamie Oliver Home Education: Training and educating children under nine by Charlotte M. Mason Charlotte Mason Companion by Karen Andreola Real Food for Dogs by Arden Moore The Complete Guide to Asperger's Syndrome by Tony Attwood D'Aulaire's Book of Norse Myths by Ingri and Edgar Parin D'Aulaire Knitting for Peace by Betty Christiansen The Slow Cooker Ready and Waiting Cookbook by Rich Rodgers Not Your Mother's Slow Cooker Recipes for Two by Beth Hensperger The Celtic Way of Seeing: Meditations on the Irish Spirit Wheel by Frank MacEowen Felt Wee Folk: Enchanting Projects by Salley Mavor Goddess Afoot!: Practicing Magic with Cel...

Since I've seen a lot of other blogs posting their seed orders, I thought I'd post mine real quick (partly cuz I wanna update my blog but don't have much time...). We've ordered from Fedco this year, but will also buy some from local seed and nursery stores I'm sure. I went with Fedco for a few reasons. One, they test all their seed to make sure it's free of genetically modified organisms. Two, they are a Maine company and I thought ordering from a northern location would be good. And three, I really like their catalog, and they offer a lot of organic seeds. Here's the list for 2009 (these seeds join a lot of seeds from 2007/2008 that we'll still plant): Provider Bush Green Bean OG Sugarsnap Snap Pea OG Red Ace Beet OG Chioggia Beet OG Detroit Dark Red Short Top Beet Prisma Shallots Copra Onion Clear Dawn Onion OG Watercress Early Jersey Wakefield Cabbage Danish Ballhead Cabbage Cosmonaut Volkov Tomato OG Heinz 2653 Paste Tomato OG Jewel Mix Nastur...

The kids took their annual, required standardized achievement test yesterday. This is the law in Minnesota, homeschoolers have to take the test and keep it in the files at home but we don't have to turn it in to the district or anything, unless there's a problem. It seems reasonable to me. Yesterday's test went well. A friend of mine, a former teacher, does the testing as a business, so the kids are really comfortable with her. She sets up her "office" at the library and devotes about an hour to each kid, using the Peabody Individual Achievement Test . The categories in the Peabody test are General Information (science, social studies, art, etc.); Reading Recognition; Reading Comprehension; Mathematics; Spelling. There are 100 questions per category, though they don't start each child at number 1 but somewhere before/below where they should be at and work up from there. One of my kids , age 9, tests just at or above her grade level. This is great. A confirmat...